and pleasure, those parts of the sacred history which refer to Jerusalem. Every reader of the Gospels naturally forms in his mind some picture-more or less true, according to the extent of his information-of the appearance and condition of Jerusalem as it existed in the time of Jesus; and it is our pleasant task to endeavour to bring together such facts and circumstances as may assist this operation, and enable him to form a more true and lively idea of the holy city than can be received without some such assistance.

This task is not without its difficulties. Some of them have been pointed out by differ ent writers; and by none of them in a more striking manner than by Dr. Richardson, in the following passage, copied from his "Travels:"-" It is a tantalizing circumstance to one who wishes to recognise in his walks the sites of particular buildings, or the scene of remarkable events, that the greater part of the objects mentioned in the descriptions both of the inspired and Jewish historian, are entirely razed from their foundation, without leaving a single trace or name behind to point out where they stood. Not an ancient gate, or wall, or tower, or hardly even a stone

remains. The foundations are not only broken up, but every fragment of which they were composed is swept away; and the spectator looks upon the bare rock, with hardly a sprinkling of earth to point out her gardens of pleasure, or groves of idolatrous worship. A few gardens still remain on the sloping base of Mount Zion, watered from the pool of Siloam: the gardens of Gethsemane are still in a sort of ruined cultivation; the fences are broken down, and the olive-trees decaying, as if the hand which dressed and fed them were withdrawn; the Mount of Olives still retains a languishing verdure, and nourishes a few of those trees from which it derives its name; but all around Jerusalem the general aspect is blighted and barren: the grass is withered: the bare rock looks through the scanty sward, and the grain itself, like the starving progeny of famine, seems to doubt whether to come to maturity or to die in the ear. Jerusalem has heard the voice of David and of Solomon, of prophets and apostles: and He who spake as never man spake, has taught in her synagogues* and in her Before her legislators, her poets, and

streets.

This is rather a mistake; Jesus taught in the synagogues of other cities, but in the temple at Jerusalem.

her apostles, those of all other nations became dumb, as unworthy to stand in their presence. Once she was rich in every blessing, victorious over all her enemies, and sitting in peace, with every man under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree, with none to disturb or to make him afraid. Jerusalem was the highest of all the cities of the east, and fortified above all other towns; so strong that the Roman conqueror thereof, and the master of the whole world besides, exclaimed on entering the city of David, and looking up to the towers which the Jews had abandoned- Surely, we have had God for our assistance in the war: for what could human hands or human machines do against these towers? It is no other than God who has expelled the Jews from their fortifications.' It is impossible for the Christian traveller to look upon Jerusalem with the same feelings with which he would set himself to contemplate the ruins of Thebes, of Athens, or of Rome, or any other city that the world ever saw. There is in all the doings of the Jews, their virtues and their vices, their wisdom and their folly, a height and a depth, a breadth and a length, that the angels cannot fathom. Their whole history is a history of

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miracles; the precepts of their sacred book are the most profound, the best adapted to every station in which man can be placed: they moderate him in prosperity, sustain him in adversity, guide him in health, console him in sickness, support him at the close of life, travel on with him through death, live with him throughout the endless ages of eternity; and Jerusalem lends its name to the eternal mansions of the blessed in heaven, which man is admitted to enjoy through the atonement of Christ Jesus, who was born of a descendant of Judah."

This fine passage, although not in all points strictly accurate, is suggestive, and will suitably introduce the subjoined particulars.

A general view of the site of Jerusalem has already been given (p. 30); and our present attention will therefore be confined to the buildings and scriptural localities of the city.

The WALLS, of which the history has already been given in the preceding sketch of the city's history, require our first attention. The description which we must follow is that of Josephus. He assumes as the starting point of his description, the Tower of Hippicus, which eccupied the north-west quarter of Mount Zion.

The first wall skirted the northern brow of Zion, and then crossing the valley of the Tyropeon, was joined to the natural wall of the temple, which was completely surrounded by a strong wall of its own: In the opposite direction it encompassed the hill on the western and northern sides, so far as the pool of Siloam, where it again crossed the valley of Tyropoon, and was continued round the edge of the temple mount, here called Ophel, until it joined the extremity of the eastern wall of the temple. From the pool of Siloam there was a wall along the eastern brow of Zion, to meet that which bounded it on the north, so that the upper city was completely surrounded by a wall of its own. A wall thus encircling Mount Zion was doubtless the first which existed on the site of Jerusalem, and enabled the Jebusites so long to maintain themselves in the possession of the upper city.

The second wall is described as commencing at a place called the Gate of Gennath, a point in the first wall east of Hippicus, and encircling the northern part of the city, was joined to the fortress Antonia, which occupied a considerable space at the north-west of the temple area. In process of time, the population in this part, north of the temple, had overflowed the limits